ray scanlon wrote:
> David Longley writes:
>>>>Don't you think sleight-of-hand and metaphysics deserves derision?
>>> Well, then let's drop all the sleight-of-hand and metaphysical
> prejudices and talk about the brain.
>> Since the neural net (interneurons) appeared in Cnidaria, what has
> changed? For one thing, the DNA has evolved to a point where it is
> able to construct a whole series of motor program generators, groups
> of neurons that when triggered produce a motor act. These generators
> can be modified by experience but they are not learned. We are born
> with them.
>> The location in the nervous system of some of these motor program
> generators can be more or less specified.
[...]
Are you claiming that we are born able to walk?
The development of the motor cortex is actually a good deal more
complicated than you appear to believe. Even in animals that can walk a
few minutes after birth. So I would prefer to say that we are born ready
to learn certain things. If that learning is impeded, we may never learn
to do the things we are "born with."